Sunday, 1 June 2014

AVN Awards: Porn Pun Titles (NSFW)

Never has the word “clever” been more dubiously used than in the Adult Video News awards category “Clever Title of the Year”.

The category’s inherent irony is that “Clever Title of the Year” is itself a really stupid title: take a look at the nominee lists below and you will understand why. “Ridiculous Title of the Year”, “Most Staggering Title of the Year”, “Title That Makes It Apparent That Far Too Much Porn is Produced Every Year”, or even “AVN Workers’ Favourite Category in the AVN Awards” would all be more accurate.

Is it any wonder that the porn DVD market has dried up? There are surely few sex-based pun-titles left to use. The good news is that the more pitiful these titles get, the more gob-smacking they become. I’m not sure any mentioned above have toppled my past favourite titles, which include: Oklahomo, The Great Muppet Raper, C**k Asian, and the crowning majesty of My Big Fat Greek C**k, which is particularly superb because it doesn’t even come close to working as a play-on-words.

As it transpires, the 2013 awards list is quite lacklustre, so I haven’t include them all. Of note (the cream of the cream of the crop) are:

●Ass Cream Sandwich [Third Degree Films]

●My Wife Caught Me Assf***ing Her Mother [Devil's Film]

●Nice Shoes, Wanna F**k? [Electric/Hustler]

●She Plays a Mean Rusty Trombone! [Lethal Hardcore/Pulse]

●Show Me Your S***hole [B. Pumper/Freaky Empire]

●The Spit and the Speculum [Mike Adriano/Evil Angel]

●Subtle Fragrance of Her Private Parts [Swank/Pure Play]

I’m calling it: romance is officially dead.

**UPDATE**: November 2014. More offensive titles this year: for example, 12 Inches a Slave has been nominated. Other offensive candidates include fellow nominees 1 in the Slit 1 in the Shit and (the rather boring) Pregnant and Pounded.

There are the usual batch of parody titles, which do verge on being witty:

Dawn of the Planet of the Gapes

The Little Spermaid

Trans Formers

We have also been treated to some titles that don't really work, including Two Chicks at the Same Time, Man!, Romancing Her Rectum and I’m Not 50, I’m 5 Perfect 10’s.

Over the last few years, my favourites have been those titles that are so long and cumbersome that they don't come close to working. The industry did not let me down this year, offering My Black Stepdaddy Disciplined Me Now My Pussy Is Sore! and She Divorced Me So I Fucked Her Hot Slutty Attorney. Surely the latter already has the "Clever Title" trophy in the bag.

**UPDATE**: November 2015. Ah yes dear reader, here we are again. Another year has passed, and another batch of 'Clever Title' nominations is here.

This year, the category is chock full of duds, including

Bush Supporter [Hustler Video] – which would have been more overtly topical ten years ago when George Dubya was still president (I'm taking it for granted that Jeb is an irrelevancy)

Dark Side of Her Moon [Dogfart] – which would have been more topical in 1973, when Pink Floyd were still a going concern, and

Less Talking More Sucking [Fantasy Massage] – which has never been topical.

The attempts to “play on words” are not much better: Hair Supply [Third Degree Films], Pornado [Adult Source Media], and Gingeracial [Third Degree Films] are all barely functional. The best of these is Teenage Mutant Ninja Titties [Hot Mess/Exile]… in this case, “best” is hardly a complement.

At least titles such as Old Dumb and Begging to Cum [Tug Zone/Black Market] and That Rapper Destroyed My Crapper [Lethal Hardcore] have a rhythm that suggests someone has made a tokenistic effort, which is more than can be said for My Tits, My Story [Score/Pure Play]: I mean, seriously, how did this warrant a nomination?

Charting this category over the last few years, it is hard not to notice a rapid decline in effort, and to extrapolate from that a narrative about the deterioration of the US porn industry. If these are the “Cleverest Titles” generated in the last 12 months, they tell a woeful tale of a withering business, drained of creativity and verging on expiration.

If anyone had told me in 2009 that Bareback Mount Him would amount to a "golden era classic", I'd have scoffed. In 2015, I'd settle for a Steve (Blow)jobs, The Hunger-Gaymes: Mocking Gay, or Mad Maxxx: Furry Load (whatever the hell that might mean)...

**UPDATE**: November 2016. Another washout in this category. The lowest number of amusing titles to-date. Even worse, the only real contender - Ten Inch Mutant Ninja Turtles - was nominated for various awards, but not for its title. Time for some kind of intervention in the nomination system, for sure.